


I'll Try Not To Say It (It Feels Like I Might Say It)

by mix_kid_ao3



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Bottom Lambert (The Witcher), Lambert has bipolar, Love Confessions, M/M, Soft Lambert (The Witcher), Top Aiden (The Witcher)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26418373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mix_kid_ao3/pseuds/mix_kid_ao3
Summary: Aiden proposes a mutually beneficial travel arrangement for the indefinite future. Lambert would be a fool to decline.
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 99
Collections: Bounce A Coin Bingo





	I'll Try Not To Say It (It Feels Like I Might Say It)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Bounce A Coin Bingo: Proposal  
> Title from Tongue by MNEK
> 
> Lambert is Bad at words and Aiden recognizes this. They are just in love but won't say it outright u_u
> 
> AKA Brave doesn’t know shit about Witcher locations but I looked at a map and said “yeah that looks good”

There’s sweat cooling over Aiden’s skin, gathering in the small of his back as he pants into the sheets near Lambert’s head. Firelight reflects off the sweat until it appears something between stars and molten gold, his skin shimmering. 

He’s pretty like this.

He’s always pretty, all lithe muscle and bouncing black curls as he is, but there’s something especially gorgeous in seeing the lines where his body holds tension gone slack and relaxed. The sort of blissed look Lambert can make out from where Aiden’s buried his face in the bedroll paired with the gentle rise and fall of his chest makes something flutter in Lambert’s own, though that might just be the remnants of a phenomenal orgasm. 

Aiden is muttering to himself and though Lambert can’t understand a word past the slurring he can guess it’s meant to be praise. Aiden is always like that. Praising him. Lambert doesn’t think he deserves it but he likes the warm feeling he gets when Aiden talks too much to stop him. He likes everything about Aiden it seems. 

The Cat’s eyes open and he quiets. He’s looking at Lambert with those big green eyes of his. Big eyes so green they glow, with pupils so wide they almost swallow the green entirely. There are too many emotions in his gaze, or maybe just one very big emotion, and Lambert can’t bring himself to meet it without the breath leaving his chest. 

He distracts himself with mapping out Aiden’s scars. There’s the slash over his collar bone, and the jagged raised claw mark on his bicep, and the marks under his pecs he doesn’t have a story for yet. Lambert can’t see any lines that weren’t there the year before and tension bleeds from his shoulders, though he knows there might be something he can’t see under the blanket. 

There’s a bruise over Aiden’s back and shoulder blade, creeping onto his ribs. Lambert feels anger well in him for just a moment before he realizes the bruise is from being thrown, not kicked. It’s mottled and uneven, but not in the way repetitive blows are. There’s no one for Lambert to take revenge on, as Aiden would have killed whatever monster threw him when it happened, and so the urge to hit something recedes as much as it ever does. 

Being thrown by monsters is part of the job. For all the alchemists’ mutations witchers aren’t perfect killing machines, they’re just durable enough to get back up most of the time when they’re blindsided. Some days it feels like getting beaten by men in the street is part of the job as well, though Lambert is told there was a time when witchers were revered. He knows that time was long before he was born, that his parents and the masters all knew the kind of ostracization they were dooming him to when they handed him over. It makes him angry, as most things do, that witchers are destined to be abused because of choices others made for them, but it makes him furious that men can’t at least stay out of their way. 

Lambert knows Aiden has more trouble with humans that he does. He’s seen the resulting handprints, bruises, and belt marks. The feelings he gets when he thinks of Aiden spitting blood are vulnerable, and Lambert can feel himself slipping into one of those dark, reckless moods of his as he contemplates it. He does stupid shit when he lets himself feel this much at once. Aiden has said the Cats’ mutagens make them feel everything too much, that they don’t get the luxury of indifference. He thinks he can understand that to some degree, though his emotions were overpowering even before the mutagens. 

Lambert breathes out through his nose slowly, grounding himself in the feel of Aiden’s skin under his palm. The other preens, a habit he swears has nothing to do with his school’s namesake, and Lambert runs his hand over the bruise. He hopes the motion is at least half as soothing to Aiden as it is to him, knowing it couldn’t have been easy to keep Lambert bent in half while he’d fucked him with an injury like that. 

Aiden huffs back, letting his eyes close slowly. Lambert smiles and runs a hand through the Cat’s hair just to see him chase it. When Aiden’s eyes open again they settle on Lambert’s with a kind of determination they hadn’t held before. The Wolf pulls away. 

“I hear there are bandits in Upper Aedirn this year,” he drawls, voice low. 

Aiden’s tone is conversational, though he says it quietly. Between his volume, the sounds of crackling wood, and the sweat still clinging to their skin the moment almost seems delicate. Lambert hums in response.

“I think we ought to stick together through there, just for safety. You never know what might happen, and my spot’s on the way to Kaer Morhen anyways.”

The Wolf’s stomach does a flip and he moves to his elbows. In general, witchers don’t travel together. It puts humans on edge, and it’s sure to draw attention seeing a Wolf and a Cat in the same place. Still, their time together is always too short, never longer than a couple of days. Lambert would be lying if he said he didn’t think about spending every night like this. 

Lambert’s heard the rumors about bandits in Aedirn too and knows for a fact they could both handle themselves against the ragtag group.

“I could drop you off,” he says anyways. 

Aiden’s eyes narrow; they do that when he hears something he likes. He edges his hand closer to Lambert’s, not quite touching. Suddenly the conversation feels less speculative. They aren’t making pillow talk they both know won’t happen. Aiden isn’t telling him pretty what-ifs to make him feel better before he slips away in the early morning. 

Upper Aedirn is a week away, and Aiden’s “spot” is two weeks from there. The thought of three weeks together is enough to make something under Lambert’s skin buzz. It seems like an eternity in comparison to their stolen weekends between contracts and no time at all compared to the lifetime Lambert wants to spend with him. 

“It’s been cold lately,” he continues. “By the time we get up there the passes might be snowed in.” 

Lambert’s heart races as much as a Witcher’s can. 

“If that’s the case,” he starts then pauses to wet his lips. “If that’s the case then I guess I’ll just have to stay with you.”

He doesn’t mention that the passes don’t fill for at least another month and a half, more than enough time for Lambert to make it up and through safely. Aiden shifts closer until they’re sharing the same air and hums. He reaches for the blanket and pulls it higher. 

“I guess you would, if I don’t get sick of your dramatics and hit you over the head with a frying pan, that is.” Lambert makes an indignant noise and flicks Aiden’s cheek. The cat grins wide, feigning ease, and huffs a laugh out his nose. He goes on almost nervously. “If you make it that long, contracts are good in the spring. There are sure to be a couple of two-person jobs in Redania.”

Admitting he wants to drag out their time together so unnecessarily feels too vulnerable, even in the quiet of the night. Witchers do not travel together, and they most certainly do not get attached to witchers from rival schools. But Lambert has always been the most impulsive, of his brothers, of his year, of the few Wolves left, so rather than ending this as he should Lambert says, “I hear there are plenty of two-person jobs on the coast.” 

Aiden’s eyes crinkle again. 

“There are always jobs on the coast.”

Lambert’s hands are shaking where they’re balled in the sheets. He tenses, relaxes his grip, starts over. There’s potential in the air, vague, unknown, and overwhelming. What he says next matters. There’s a fullness in his throat that he doesn’t know what to do with. It’s the kind of fullness that makes Lambert want to talk for hours, only he does know what he’d say. 

That’s a lie. He knows exactly what he wants to say. He wants to tell Aiden to fess up and get to the point. He wants to tell Aiden that he’ll follow the Cat anywhere, so long as he might be of service to him. He wants to tell Aiden he wouldn’t mind waking up every morning to wild locks tickling his nose and butterfly kisses on his chest. 

Aiden pulls the sheets from Lambert’s grasp and tangles their fingers together. 

“We could stay together, Lam. As long as you need me.”

At first Lambert isn’t sure he heard right, but Aiden is looking at him like what he says next could make or break him. Lambert wants to say ‘ _yes, a thousand times, yes._ ’ It would be so easy, to drop the pretense and accept what they both know Aiden is offering. He doesn’t say the words, but Lambert hears it all the same. “ _I’ll keep you safe, I’ll make sure you’re warm, as long as you’ll have me. I love you, I love you_.” 

It’s too much, and Lambert can’t accept. As impulsive as he is, at heart he is a coward. The wolf chokes, stumbling over half-formed declarations of love. Part of him still whispers _this is a trap_ , even after the years they’ve spent chasing each other. He pauses to count his breaths, to try to find something to grasp onto in the tide of his feelings.

“To yours,” he finally says. “To yours, then to the coast. Then Kaer Morhen as a thank you.”

“Then to the mountains?” Aiden adds, less sure then he had been. 

Lambert races to assure him. He wants it, he wants it more than anything, he just can’t say it. 

“To the mountains, and to the wineries in Toussaint you like—”

Aiden must catch on because he cuts Lambert off to say “—and the wildflower plains in Dol Blathanna.”

“And—” Lambert fumbles “—and we’ll figure it out from there.”

Aiden pulls Lambert closer and kisses him so deeply the world seems to blur around them. 

“And we’ll figure it out from there. We’ll keep figuring it out as long as we like,” he breathes between kisses. 

Lambert draws in just enough breath to reply before Aiden is on him again. 

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Cat.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr?](https://twinkbouttapounce.tumblr.com/)


End file.
